Student Accomplishments
Exploring life's unknowns
A medical mission to Haiti changed Curt Canine’s career course to nursing. Then his mentor opened his eyes to basic physiology research. A travel endowment supported his trip to present his research findings at a national conference, and he also was one of 13 worldwide finalists for the David S. Bruce Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research.
Curt Canine was two years into his degree in Bible studies when a Columbia doctor invited him on a medical mission to Haiti. It was an experience that changed his life. “Cases touched me. A woman came in with a simple medical problem that had made her an outcast. The doctor spent 15 minutes on a procedure that changed her life.”
Once back in the states, Canine decided to come to Mizzou to pursue a career in nursing. After a seminar, Canine approached the guest lecturer, Nursing Professor Donna Williams, with a question about her research. She invited him to visit the lab and eventually asked him to assist. “At one point I asked her a question. She looked at me and said, ‘You figure it out.’ ” Williams had confidence he would rise to the challenge.
His project was to decrease infections in frog models used to study capillary health. He called experts, talked to professors and conducted experiments over the next several months. He wrote an abstract and entered it in an international competition, where it was one of 13 finalists. A Verna Adwell Rhodes International Travel Endowment paid for him to attend the national conference of the American Physiological Society to present it.
Canine says he is fascinated by the unknown and is drawn to physiology because of the many puzzles it poses. “There are so many questions out there to answer, there are enough to fill up ten careers,” Canine says.
His parents’ income level made him ineligible for many scholarships, but he was responsible for his own student expenses. He worked construction jobs for two years, then landed a job in the hospital operating room to help pay his way.